The appellate court rejected petitioner's eighth amendment challenge and declined to address the due process claim, as it was raised for the first time in petitioner's supplemental brief. 2021 IL App (1st) 181817, ¶¶ 17-21, 28. One dissenting justice found the statute violated substantive due process.
Defendant raised this issue in a supplemental brief filed after the original round of briefing. Where our rules do not allow an appellant to assert new issues in a reply brief, the appellant should also not be allowed "to file a supplemental brief which seeks to accomplish the same purpose, i.e., to raise an issue not previously considered in his original brief." People v. Pertz, 242 Ill.App.3d 864, 914 (1993); see also People v. Harris, 129 Ill.2d 123, 171 (1989); People v. Villareal, 2021 IL App (1st) 181817, ¶¶ 25-26; People v. Serritella, 2022 IL App (1st) 200072, ¶¶ 111.
A defendant may attack a statute's constitutionality on appeal even if he did not raise the issue in the trial court in his postconviction petition. People v. Villareal, 2021 IL App (1st) 181817, ¶ 11 (citing People v. Thompson, 2015 IL 118151, ¶ 32, and Davis, 2014 IL 115595, ¶ 26). Thus, even though defendant did not raise the constitutionality of section 5-4.5-115 of the Unified Code in his postconviction petition, we will consider defendant's challenge on appeal.
It then maintains that all remaining claims have been abandoned on appeal and may not be "resurrected" in defendant's reply brief, at oral argument, or in a petition for rehearing. In support of its claim, the State relied on People v. Villareal, 2021 IL App (1st) 181817, ¶ 26.